


Five things Mitchell wishes he'd known before joining the SGC.

by ivorygates



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: 5things, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-05
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 13:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Five things Mitchell wishes he'd known before joining the SGC.  Another 5Things comm prompt, apparently from 9/21/2006.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Five things Mitchell wishes he'd known before joining the SGC.

**Author's Note:**

> Five things Mitchell wishes he'd known before joining the SGC. Another 5Things comm prompt, apparently from 9/21/2006.

1\. He wishes he'd known that SG-1 had been disbanded. Yes, it would have made a difference. He'd wanted to join SG-1, and learn from the best. After the crash he'd thought (still does, actually, sometimes) that the reflexes that made him a fighter pilot were gone. He'd missed them like you miss your innocence, but they always go eventually; they all know that - not a failure of nerve, but of neurons. It didn't mean he was over. He'd wanted to soar in a different way, on a different front line. And then he got to Cheyenne Mountain, and the touchstone he'd meant to prove himself against was gone.

It's true he got them all back in the end. But he'd never expected to be leading them.

2\. He wishes he'd known he wasn't going to be in charge. Nominally, technically, he's the leader and commander of SG-1, even though Sam has been here longer and has more boots on the ground experience through the Gate, Teal'c is about ten times his age - and Cameron thinks, sometimes, that Teal'c just thinks all this is funny - and Jackson apparently wouldn't recognize a direct order if you put a gun to his head. He doesn't give orders in the field. He makes suggestions. If he's lucky, they take them.

It's as weird as snake shoes. He's not following anybody's orders out here - he doesn't count 'get out of my way' as an order - and he's not really giving orders. But when their backs are all up against the wall and they're about to die, he's the one they all look to for a bright ... suggestion.

He wonders if it was like this for O'Neill.

3\. He wishes he'd known that everything in the mission reports was a damned lie. Oh, not the parts about SG-1 saving the world. That's true. And all the cool stuff about black holes and quantum mirrors and time machines. All that's true. But the mission reports kind of implied that Teal'c was this calm guy who always followed orders - there was not one word about the whole 'Jaffa Revenge Thing' - and it gave the impression that Jackson was capable of assessing appropriate levels of risk and not committing himself to suicidal jaunts in the name of galactic diplomacy (just for starters). It also gave the impression that Sam Carter (whom he's known for years) did not get so fascinated with alien technology that she decides to playtest it on the spot.

So he'd sort of gotten the impression that SG-1 were pretty normal and reasonable people. Until he met them.

4\. He wishes he'd known that Daniel Jackson was a dangerous fanatic. Oh, nobody talks about him that way. Nobody thinks about him that way. Nice guy. Nice smile. But the fact is, when Jackson gets a notion in his head, he will not stop. And if that's not the definition of a fanatic, Mitchell doesn't know what is. And it's dangerous, because when Jackson is obsessed, nothing else matters to him. It's a pinpoint focus Mitchell is familiar with. For almost a decade, Jackson's obsessions and Stargate Command have been pretty closely aligned.

Mitchell worries about the day when they aren't.

5\. He wishes he'd known that aliens were really alien. He likes the Asgard better, even though they look like dead things and when he touched one once it was cold as a frog (but dry) and slick like rubber. At least the Asgard really look alien.

Jackson lectures him about how Vala and Teal'c are really human, how the Jaffa came from Earth thousands of years ago and the Goa'uld did the wacky on them and how Vala's people (wherever they are; she still won't say) are human too; brought from Earth sometime in the last ten thousand years because the Goa'uld populated the galaxy with humans.

But what Cameron knows is that they aren't human any more. Every inflection, every gesture, is just somehow wrong. He knows they're his allies, his teammates, and he does trust them, but sometimes, when Vala smiles in a way that nothing from Earth was ever meant to see, he can't quite control a shudder of primitive dread.

#


End file.
